Ambrosio entered the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in 1981. He obtained his degree under the guidance of Ennio De Giorgi in 1985 at University of Pisa, and the Diploma at Scuola Normale. He obtained his PhD in 1988.
De Giorgi, E.; Ambrosio, L. (1989). "New Functionals in Calculus of Variations". Nonsmooth Optimization and Related Topics. Boston, MA: Springer US. doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-6019-4_4. ISBN978-1-4757-6021-7.
Ambrosio, Luigi; Gigli, Nicola; Savaré, Giuseppe (2005). Gradient flows : in metric spaces and in the space of probability measures. Boston: Birkhäuser. ISBN3-7643-2428-7. OCLC228393801.
Ambrosio, Luigi; Mascolo, Elvira; Dacorogna, Bernard; Marcellini, Paolo; Centro internazionale matematico estivo (2008). Calculus of variations and nonlinear partial differential equations : lectures given at the C.I.M.E. Summer School held in Cetraro, Italy, June 27-July 2, 2005. Berlin: Springer. ISBN978-3-540-75913-3. OCLC233973622.